BioAscent Announces New CEO and Plans to Expand Discovery Services Offering

BioAscent Discovery Limited has announced the appointment of Paul Smith as CEO, in preparation for the expansion of BioAscent’s discovery services offering. Having established its position as one of Europe’s leading outsourced compound management organisations, BioAscent will be developing a range of complementary discovery services.

Mr Smith – an experienced senior management and BD executive in the pharmaceutical/CRO arena – brings comprehensive knowledge of the drug development process, from discovery to clinical research, gained over three decades in the industry. Prior to joining BioAscent, he was CEO of CXR Biosciences, a Dundee-based ADME-Tox CRO which he successfully re-engineered from a loss-making business into a focused preclinical CRO with sector-beating profitability, and subsequently sold to Concept Lifesciences. 

“The pharma industry continues to outsource more and more areas of drug discovery and BioAscent has the dedicated facility, personnel and experience to provide increased value to our customers in early discovery chemistry and biology”, said Mr Smith. “Our Newhouse facility already offers unparalleled infrastructure for managing solid and liquid compounds and I’m really looking forward to working with the great team here at BioAscent to build a more complete range of discovery services. Our aim is to be the outsourced discovery partner of choice.”

Dr Louis Nisbet, Chairman of BioAscent’s majority shareholder, BioCity, commented: “BioAscent has a strong customer base in both large and small pharma as well as biotech, with significant capacity for growth in its superb facility. There is a major opportunity, therefore, in leveraging this capacity by providing additional services, to the compound management services for which the company is well known. Paul is the ideal person to enact this vision and increase the scope of business with both existing and new customers."